I immediately, and I’m talking immediately, created a profile and filled out an online application. I thundered through all the steps, checked my resume over and over. I even wrote a new cover letter because I wanted to give the application something special. My old cover letter was terrible and I knew it. I’d written something as boring as linoleum, as safe as the speed limit. So I grabbed the crappy, tentative, timid, lifted-from-Monster.com snoozefest and began to flesh it out. After some tinkering, I decided to keep the original boring introduction just so they’d know I’d at least read the “How to Write a Cover Letter” articles. And maybe they wanted boring. But after those first two sentences, I wrote fast and hard, playing a little loose because that’s when my best work happens (did I tell you about the time I wrote an English lit thesis minutes before class, was drying the ink on the printer paper as I walked it over to the teacher, unsure of what it said because I had literally not even read what I’d written? And that it turns out I’d written this wildly unsubstantiated idea about Sister Carrie‘s titular character not making any decisions because she was happiest when her brain was oscillating between two choices, her lovers, much like the ends of the path her head made as she incessantly rocked in her rocking chair? Yeah I said that. AND THE PROFESSOR LOVED IT. Another time, after being awake for nearly 50 hours during finals, I went totally off the rails and instead of turning in a 25-page Russian history paper, I submitted a fictional roundtable discussion between four of the class’s primary source authors. PROFESSOR LOVED THAT TOO. A+ ALL AROUND!!). I reread my changes real quick, liked them. I really liked them. I even copied and pasted them into my standard cover letter so I could use them again and again and again. I wanted them to know that I am a former reporter, a writer, a copy editor and a damn good one, a designer, etc., etc….and I felt much more confident about my own writing style right then at that moment than I had in quite some time. And since then, I’ve sent a variation of that cover letter to at least six or seven other companies.

But that was weeks ago and I haven’t heard back from St. Jude. The position’s been removed from the website and my application is listed as “under review” but that’s all I know. The friends I have there haven’t told me a whole lot either, other than that they don’t know much about it, and really, why should they?

I’m beginning to get worried. Quite worried. Like, gnawing-at-my-brain-corners-worried. What have I done wrong? I’m qualified, so I should at least get an interview, right? I know a lot of people in that department; did anyone say anything to the hiring manager, good or bad? Am I going nuts?

Today, I hear of another equally delectable posting, this time at the Zoo. I want to give them a special cover letter too so I open the file and, instead of copying and pasting, I begin to read.

And here’s what it said:

Thank your for posting this opportunity. My unique background and experience would be perfect for your organization.

Your. Thank your. Thank your. THANK YOUR.

THANK FUCKING YOURRRRRRRRRRR.

And then it all made sense. Why I hadn’t even been called. My eyes, ears, heart, stomach, brain, they all atrophied and fell to the floor in an instant with a thud and a hiss. I know it’s only a typo. It’s only one letter. But my cover letter, that fucking letter, you know it goes on to say what a great writer and copy editor I am, you know. You know it says that. And in this economy, this cutthroat world, that one r could be my rocket to the trash can. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’d scrap a “communication specialist’s” application for, if I were hiring someone. Exactly. I’d make fun of it for the whole day, probably, even. I’d laugh about how stupid they must be, and say “well if they can’t even accurately write their own cover letter, then how are they gonna work for us” and I’d go to the snack machine with my little red pen in my smug little hand and buy a soda with change from my purse, not even aware of how damn lucky I am to have a purse with change in it, and a snack machine and a little red pen.